


Roles

by sirenalley



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Age Difference, Anal, Daddy Kink, Guilt, M/M, Past Rape/Non-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-08
Updated: 2019-02-08
Packaged: 2019-10-24 14:11:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17705762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sirenalley/pseuds/sirenalley
Summary: “No.” Max stops on the sidewalk. The sun shines high, warming the ghost of death that clings to his skin. “He’s not dead.”





	Roles

**Author's Note:**

> hastily written, very little editing, a lot of shame because this ship is so hot to me. thanks for reading!

_“If the devil really exists, I think he looks like you.”_

— 

At the transparent glass window Max stops. The moment unspins itself into an eternity as solid as the rock in his gut, and when he swallows he can feel the movement stick somewhere lodged behind the knot of cartilage in his neck. Jenkins and Charlie are at his side, silent like the dead. The whole place reeks of it: white walls, white floors, a clinical creep of disinfectant ready for the grave.

The body is lying on a slab. When they pull off the white sheet, nausea rises and burns at the back of his throat — swell of a wave nearly too great to overcome. George on the other side wears green cheeks and looks closer to it than he feels.

Then he looks longer, and thinks harder, and the sensation begins to abate.

They leave the facility, Jenkins and Charlie and George gray-eyed and quiet. “Well, he’s dead,” Jenkins says. “He’s actually dead. Can’t believe it… seems so damn surreal.”

“No.” Max stops on the sidewalk. The sun shines high, warming the ghost of death that clings to his skin. “He’s not dead.”

—

The evening’s wound to a slow crawl of activity, super-rich flanked on each side of the five-star restaurant, _Le Bernadin_ , dinnerware bright and shiny under the dull yellow bulbs. Max stares across at a glittering blue wall that sits behind Ash’s head. He’s loose and hazy with the edge of however many scotches he’s had now, and he doesn’t register words until—

“Three in and you’re like this? I guess men your age aren’t very resilient.” 

“Watch it,” Max snips, out of the daze, “ _son_.”

An expression breaks over Ash’s face like a silver ray of moonlight: sharp, crescent, lips pressed into a thin line to hide the edge of teeth. Gone in a blink, and he’s sobered into the milder roles played by Father and Son. “I’m just looking out for your health, Dad. You shouldn’t hit the bottle so hard. Is something bothering you?”

Max shakes his head in a sudden bid to dump out the contents of his thoughts. “No, no, it’s nothing. Don’t worry about it. You wanna get out of here?”

“Need a shoulder to lean on, or do you think you can walk straight?” 

“ _Ha, ha_.” Max pushes himself up from the chair and snatches his coat. A woozy step has him propped against the table last second. “Damn! I didn’t even drink that much, did I?”

“Who knows? I only drink Diet Pepsi,” Ash says in a smile. In the same breath he’s reaching for Max’s arm, pulling it over a set of narrow shoulders and steering him toward the restaurant’s exit. “And this is why we only do innocent brunch dates. Less opportunity for you to drink your troubles away.”

Max looks at him sharply, sees that he’s kidding — a difficult endeavor on a face sculpted from white marble — and relaxes. The wine-colored cashmere sweater Ash wears is soft under his hand where it hangs, reclutant to brace most of his weight on Ash’s slighter body. He doesn’t even need it. He could walk fine. But he hasn’t said no, hasn’t extracted himself, and a seed of guilt begins to take root in his belly. Ash even smells good this close, not fragrant or floral but boyish and clean. He finds himself leaning in until a tickle of blond hair disturbs the end of his nose.

Drawing back and disengaging the arm-hold in the process, Max clears his throat like a smoker. “S— Sorry, Ash, uh…”

The unreadable mask on that perfect face isn’t reassuring. “It’s all right, Daddy. Promise I’ll get you home in one piece.”

What’s with _that_?

The silence that falls is tense and stilted the long walk back to Ash’s high-rise apartment. It’s only once the elevator doors have closed that he opens his mouth in attempt: “You know, it’s strange. Can’t remember the last time I wined and dined like this, and I mean, I know the context isn’t the cheeriest… we’re trying to bring down the _mob_ , Chrissakes, and now somehow the White House is tied into it?”

“I told you,” Ash says. “It’s a sick and twisted ladder all the way up.”

“Yeah, just isn’t how I pictured it.”

“Pictured what?”

“This,” he waves a hand to indicate the glass-mirror walls and gold rails of the elevator’s interior. “To be honest, never pictured myself in a restaurant like that one tonight. Or a building like this. I guess I thought maybe I could afford to take Jessica to one someday as a celebration or something, but…”

Ash raises an eyebrow.

“Anyway, never thought I’d be here in my life. With Griff’s little brother, of all the people in the world, looking like—” his jaw clamps. “Uh, well, it’s weird, right? Pretending to be family.”

“You weren’t complaining when I gave you the money to pay.” Again in a voice as toneless as stone. “What’s the real problem, Max?”

“Nothing! Damnit. Nothing’s wrong, Ash, I swear it.”

Silence lengthens between them, and Ash finally reaches to press the button for his floor. They’ve both sat stalled on the ground level for how many minutes while Max’s tipsy mind has crashed around like some stupid, lovestruck fool — no. Not _lovestruck_. It feels like the thoughts needling into his brain are intrusive and shouldn’t belong to him. It’s just because the restaurant was nice (and so were all those brunches and bars before), the scotch was top-shelf, and sometimes if Ash angles his head in a certain direction under the light he really _does_ look like Jessica. High-boned, feathery hair, bow lips, narrow cat-eyes.

Then Ash takes a step forward and _drives_ him back against the mirrored wall with a bent elbow, elevator rail digging into his lower back, alarm bell loud in his head.

“I think,” Ash drawls, “you should go back to calling me your pretty boy, Dad.”

A foot wedges between his ankles while Ash presses their bodies together in one long line, sinuously expert, blond lashes a curtain over bright green eyes. Max’s cock is hard in one terrifying breath. He can feel one of Ash’s skinny knees nudge up against the shape of it, straining through that barrier of a zipper, and he manages a strangled sound of pathetic protest. “Whoa, whoa, Ash, you don’t know what you’re doing…”

“I know exactly what I’m doing.” Max thinks he can hear a note of exasperation. “Come on, Daddy. You’ve wanted to fuck me for months now.”

Excuse him, _months_? Max’s life is flashing in front of his eyes and he thinks he’d rather Ash choked him to death than grind up against him in a tiny elevator, _in a public building_ , calling him Daddy like he’s practiced this role far longer than their charade has extended. 

“You’re watching me all the time. I’m no idiot and you know it. Why is this surprising to you?”

Because to admit it, Max doesn’t say, to admit it means an absolute betrayal to Griff. Feels like a disgusting acknowledgment that all the men who have laid their grimy hands on Ash against his will were driven by the same lust, and all he can see is Ash’s pale body on the ground in prison, wrists bound, beaten. Because to admit it would mean Max is no better than any of them, and if his ultimate goal is to _protect_ this person, then how can he ever stand in the place of all the men who have hurt Ash?

A sudden smack to the side of his head drives him back to awareness. “Snap out of it, Max. We’re here.”

It’s a short walk from the elevator to Ash’s apartment. He has the sincere intention of running out as soon as he’s dropped him off, yet when they step past the threshold, every fiber of his being roots itself to that patch of plush carpet. “Guess this is g’night.”

“It’s not,” Ash slams the front door and flattens back against it, dragging Max along. “I was serious.”

Oh, fuck.

He’s still so painfully hard he feels like he might burst in his own pants, an embarrassing display of his lack of willpower when it’s Ash all over him. Their mouths collide in a slick and open kiss. He can taste Ash’s breath, stale spit, the Pepsi he drank at dinner and a hint of lemon-flavor from the fish. Something animal takes over his mind. He finds himself using the superior bulk of his own frame to keep Ash pinned against the wood as hands navigate beneath clothes and begin to yank them aside. Ash’s skin is burning hot underneath the sweater where warmth has trapped itself. 

Stripping that off, his palms return to the tight little body against him. Eyes seek Ash’s face and it robs him of all air — the dark and dilated pupils, flushed cheeks, a raw and open appetite. He’s not stupid. He knows he’s not the one with power here, however the roles are played.

Short delivery later, Ash is naked and thrown down onto the bed. He scoots himself up against the pillows, lounging like a cat, knees angled and thighs slightly spread. “See, Daddy, didn’t I tell you this is what you wanted?”

“Time to be quiet, son,” Max finds himself saying. It’s like he’s watching himself speak through someone else’s mouth. He can feel his heart slamming in his ears, dress shirt askew, slacks tented, blissfully ignorant of tomorrow’s regret. “Be a good boy for Daddy.” 

Ash makes an obscene sound and spreads his legs wider. Delicate fingers seek the arch of his own dick, flushed a pale pink, leaking precome into the shallow dip of a navel.

Hands work off a jangling belt, which Max tosses aside. He climbs onto the end of the bed and reaches for Ash’s thin ankle to _drag_ him down the white sheets. Ash’s blond hair is a messy, yellow halo around his head, and he’s the prettiest creature Max has seen in his life. Lubed fingers — from a bottle in the nighstand, Max was a little sick to find — play at the opening of Ash’s body, working at a tight hole with callused fingertips, knuckles seeming too thick for someone so slender and fragile. It’s a ploy, he knows, because Ash is greedy to take it. Getting him loose is almost easy. Sliding on the condom is even easier.

The motions of sex like this are known to him, even if this is his first time fucking another man. Someone a decade-and-a-half _younger_ than him, his mind reminds, a torturous autoplay of self-hatred never gone. Ash’s legs fit well over his shoulders as he bends him nearly in half and fucks in, cock sliding all the way to the root in one grind, balls snug against the curve of that firm ass. The tight clench of Ash’s body is enough to wipe all thought and reason from his head. Their faces are close, inhaling the same air as he tucks his cheek down against Ash’s neck and inhales the scent of sweat off skin.

Max wishes he could say it’s the only sex they have that night. He doesn’t last long on the first go, orgasm rattling out of him and filling the condom with a guilty load of come, and then he watches Ash jerk himself off until he’s smeared his own belly in a sticky flood. It gets him hard again, so then Ash reverts their positions and rides his dick for a soul-stealing ten minutes straight, hair swept back on a sweaty forehead, ass stuffed full, slick and hot and too-tight around him as he watches himself disappear inside Ash with each rejoining.

They don’t say much. It’s like they can read each other’s minds through the connection of their bodies, and he doesn’t want to say anything anyway, too consumed in the process of memorizing what Ash looks like, because it’s the first and last time he’ll see it. Careful fingers measure the inches of scars littering skin. All healed into shiny lines, he wears too many for a boy of such a tender age. A marble statue that’s been dragged through the street with shards chipped out and dirt smeared over craftsmanship. Like an angel with wings plucked out, feather by feather.

Until, finally, a last time: Ash on knees on the bed, taking the length of his cock into the channel of his throat in one filthy gesture of hunger. And he comes into that mouth so Ash swallows every drop. Afterward he watches Ash wipe lips across the back of his wrist, smirking, fiendish in the dark of the apartment.

Reality begins to seep back in.

“Ash, I’m so…”

“Oh, shut up, old man.” He rises from the bed with a languid stretch, cleaning the slippery crux of legs with the corner of a bedsheet. “Don’t you dare apologize, or I’ll have to start all over again.”

It takes a mountain of will to wire his jaw shut and remain silent.

—

“I know he’s not dead,” Max says to George, Jenkins, and Charlie on the sidewalk. “I know Ash well. Probably better than I know my own son. That looked nothing like him, and they wouldn’t even let us into the room, except for _George_ , and he couldn’t even keep his face straight for two minutes.”

“Hey,” George started. “You should’ve heard what they were saying. They were about to crack open his ribs!”

“I don’t care. That’s not Ash. He’s not dead.” Max looks out over the street. The seed of guilt is dissipating, slowly, like fog in the late winter morning. “Now we just have to find him.”

—

_I’m not doing this without you._


End file.
